Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner

39

BUT IT WAS GOING TO TAKE more than luck.

With my mind so completely distracted by the problem of the authorship of the “help” messages, plus the further distraction of Andy Butler’s departure, I still hadn’t come up with a bank robbery stopper by Monday afternoon. So once again, for the fifth time, here I was in the luncheonette with Phil and Jerry and Billy, waiting for the red typewriter truck to arrive at five-thirty.

(It was the fifth time I was here, and the sixth time the others were here, but it was actually the seventh robbery attempt. The time of the great snowstorm, a month ago, we hadn’t bothered to come to the luncheonette at all.)

My mind will not fail me, I thought. Four o’clock, four- fifteen, four-thirty. My mind will not fail me. I’ve come up with last-minute solutions before this, and I’ll do it again.

But not the same solutions. I didn’t dare repeat any of those earlier ploys, for fear the repetition would click something in Phil Giffin’s mind. I was straining coincidence to the breaking point as it was, though in fact two of those instances, the bank party and the snowstorm, were simply natural occurrences that nobody could have set up in advance. But three of the remaining four had involved bombs of one sort or another-stink, smoke and scare-and that was permitting the ice to get a trifle thin.

That’s all right, I told myself, as five o’clock came by, you’ll think of something. You’ll think of something, Harry. You always think of something.

Not a bomb. Nothing to the truck. Not a phone call.

Tip the police? Tell them a robbery was about to happen?

No. They wouldn’t rush to the scene with sirens blaring, they’d sneak up and capture us the instant we made our move.

I’ll think of something. I’ll think of something.

Five-fifteen. Five-twenty-five.

If I pretended a heart attack? No, they’d go on anyway, and I couldn’t afford to be taken away in an ambulance to some hospital’s emergency ward, where they’d request identification.

Five-thirty.

I’ll think of something.

The typewriter repair truck arrived. It was a new truck, also a red Ford Econoline van just like the old one; I must have really done a good job on that earlier truck.

So I can do a good job now. I’ll think of something in just a second.

Joe got out of the truck, walked to the back door, opened it.

Maybe the Third World War will start. Or we’ll get a visitor from outer space.

Joe took out the typewriter, carried it over to the Federal Fiduciary door. Eddie, overcoat on over his guard uniform, climbed out of the truck and walked over to stand with Joe.

“I don’t believe it,” Phil said. I looked at him, and his expression was awed, as though he were seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary, who was telling him how to attain Peace on Earth.

The bank door opened. Joe and Eddie walked in.

“Let’s go,” Phil said.

I’ll think of something, I thought. I got to my feet with the others, and we trooped out of the luncheonette and across the street.

I’ll think of something. Wait a second now.